ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book represents an attempt to understand the states of mind that underlie the serious eating disorders of anorexia and bulimia. It has developed through two distinct areas of professional practice. The first is direct clinical work as a psychoanalyst, treating adult patients who suffer from eating disorders. The second is as a learning resource to the staff that runs specialist units caring for patients with eating disorders. The book is psychoanalytic inasmuch as it assumes that mental functioning is unconscious as well as conscious and that, as human beings, we only very partially understand our own motivation. It suggests that eating disorders, like other forms of illness, vary in severity and also in the emotional availability of the patients for treatment.
